It may be useful to provide a system to controllably dispense water at a predetermined temperature in the food production industry. For example, it may be desirable to use a particular water temperature to produce mashed potatoes in a restaurant environment. However, it may also be desirable to use a different water temperature to produce dough in the same restaurant.
It also could be desirable to provide a system which can controllably dispense desired or predetermined volumes of water at a desired temperature. For example, the mashed potatoes may require one gallon of water at a temperature of 200° F. whereas the pizza dough may only require three cups of water at a temperature of 100° F. Further, it might also be desirable to produce these different volumes at difference temperatures in sequence generally without having to wait for any alteration in the water temperature.
These volumes and temperatures may be achieved by heating water, manually on a stove and monitoring the temperature of the water as it is heated. Alternatively, water can be drawn from a hot water dispensing system at a predetermined temperature, and additional water, manually added, to bring the temperature to a desired range. As one might imagine, this can be a challenging task subject to error. Such errors may be magnified in the resulting waste of food product. For example, if the dough is not mixed with the proper temperature water, the yeast in the dough could be underdeveloped as a result of the water being too cool or overdeveloped and killed as a result of the water being too hot.
It has been known that a water heating system can use a heated water tank and a chilled water tank or a reduced hot water tank to produce a desired end result temperature. However, these systems can be complicated and require a considerable amount of space in order to provide the desired result.
With the foregoing in mind, it could be useful to provide a heated water system which can provide a predetermined volume of water at a predetermined temperature for use in the food preparation environment. Also, it could be useful to provide such a system having a user interface to reduce potential errors in setting temperature and volume. Furthermore, it could be useful to provide such a system having a relatively high degree of accuracy in dispensing the selected volume and temperature of water.